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Even for an accomplished scholar like Professor Robin Effron, few thrills compete with that of peer recognition. Her forthcoming article in the Alabama Law Review, “Reason Giving and Rule Making in Procedural Law” (2014), has won significant attention—including a visit to Nashville earlier this week, as part of the 2013 New Voices in Civil Justice Workshop at Vanderbilt University.

“I was so pleased that my paper was selected,” Professor Effron said. “It was a really intensive day and a half of discussing our scholarship, and I felt fortunate to be recognized by authorities in the field.”

In the article, Professor Effron argues that, for certain types of procedural directives, rulemakers should focus on the process by which judges make procedural decisions, rather than trying to regulate procedures through rules or standards. The New Voices Workshop provided a special opportunity to showcase the theory before an audience of scholars and experts in the areas of civil justice. She was among three junior law scholars invited to appear at the event, based on the strength of their works. Two highly prominent figures in procedural law—Benjamin Spencer of Washington & Lee University and Kevin Stack of Vanderbilt University—introduced and commented on Professor Effron’s paper.

It is not the first time that her scholarship has garnered attention. Last year, in a case about jurisdiction over foreign manufacturers and importers, the Tennessee Supreme Court cited and quoted excerpts from her article in the Lewis & Clark Law Review, “Letting the Perfect Become the Enemy of the Good: The Relatedness Problem in Personal Jurisdiction” (2012). Professor Effron’s past articles on complex litigation have also been published in several law reviews and selected for presentation at major conferences. “It’s nice to be validated in this way, to know people are reading your work,” she said.

The acknowledgment is just the latest for Professor Effron, who has taught civil procedure and business law courses at BLS for the past five years. She was recently named Associate Director for the Dennis J. Block Center for the Study of International Business Law, where she will be involved with the selection of fellows and planning for scholarly programming, such as symposia, roundtables, and international economic forums. She is also an avid writer, penning op-eds for various publications, as well as editing the Civil Procedure and Federal Courts Blog for the Law Professors Blog Network.

Prior to joining Brooklyn Law School’s faculty, Professor Effron served as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School. She also served as a law clerk to Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Fluent in German, Professor Effron spent an academic year in Germany as a fellow in the D.A.A.D. Program for International Lawyers and worked with attorneys in the legal department of a large investment bank to research questions of German and U.S. law.